Curiously, all
the pre-release buzz about this flick revolved around the question of whether or
not 9-11 was still too sensitive a subject to make a movie about five years
after the fact. The cynic in me suspects that this brouhaha might have been
baked-up by a cagey publicist in search of a little headline-grabbing
controversy. Afterall, a trio of TV docudramas specifically about United Flight
93 have already been very well received.

First came,
Let's Roll: The Story of Flight 93 (2002), followed by The Flight That Fought
Back (2005), and then by Flight 93 (2006). So, rather than wondering if this
picture might be arriving too soon, any speculation probably should have
centered on whether the public would even want to endure yet another chronicling
of the same tragic series of events aboard this ill-fated airliner.

Fortunately,
United 93 does depart significantly from those earlier offerings in a couple of
critical respects, namely, it avoids the tempting trap of trading in
sentimentality or in symbols of patriotism. Ironically, by not wrapping itself
up in the American flag, demonizing the evildoers, canonizing the heroes, or
focusing on their tearful telephone farewells to family and friends, this
relatively-sophisticated film actually ends up being a far more effective
enterprise, emotionally. For it telescopes tightly on the tragedy, not as a
rallying cry for the war on terror, but from the plausible perspective of 40,
otherwise ordinary people simply reacting and responding to the shocking
realization that their jet has just been hijacked.

This
hyper-realistic approach was the brainchild of Paul Greengrass, the acclaimed
British writer/director who adopted the same verisimilitude in making Bloody
Sunday (2002) a documentary-style drama recounting the massacre of 13 peaceful,
Irish protesters by British troops. Greengrass is credited with imbuing each of
his socially-relevant recreations with that trademark dynamic intensity, so
United 93 should come as no surprise to those familiar with his earlier work.

As everyone
knows, four aircraft were seized by Muslim extremists on 9-11, but only Flight
93 failed to hit its target. It departed from Newark Airport at 8:42 with 44
aboard: 33 passengers, 7 crew members, and 4 hijackers. From the transcript of
the plane's black box voice recorder, as well as from phone calls placed by a
dozen victims, we know that the conspirators stormed the cockpit at 9:26 A.M.,
just two minutes after the captain had been warned of a possible intrusion.

And the nation
is also well aware of the valiant attempt of the passengers to retake the plane
a half-hour later, once they had learned from operators and loved ones of their
captors' intention to turn the aircraft into a weapon of mass destruction. Armed
with cutlery, boiling water and a food cart, they charged up the aisle, inspired
by Todd Beamer's rallying cry of ’Let's roll!’ But the Arabs at the controls
decided to crash the plane before the passengers could wrest control back.

In crafting
United 93, director Greengrass remained painstakingly faithful to these known
facts, though he does take considerable liberties in filling in the cracks with
likely scenarios. The film unfolds in real-time on that fateful September
morning, initially inter-cutting staged shots of terrorists, travelers and air
traffic controllers with now familiar TV-footage of the Trade Center and the
Pentagon in flames. We also see the rank ineptitude of the FAA, and the utter
unpreparedness of NORAD to defend the country from the air.

But once the
terrorists take charge of Flight 93, the movie turns terribly claustrophobic,
concerning itself solely with the point-of-view of those inside the plane. So,
for instance, we only hear the passengers' half of their phone conversations,
and how they came to decide to hatch a plan after cobbling together the somewhat
unreliable information they were receiving from the outside world.

It is
noteworthy that the cast is comprised of a capable ensemble of accomplished
actors augmented by actual airline personnel, including some of the air traffic
controllers on duty during 9-11. A gut-wrenching, chillingly profound profile in
courage of forty strangers who bonded under incomprehensible circumstances to
face an unspeakable evil.